Activation of Implicit Self-Schemas and a Difficulty to Disengage from Negative Cognitions in Depression: An experimental psychopathology approach

Abstract

An experimental analysis of the processes characterising psychopathology and its maintenance have become an established research area, called experimental psychopathology. Vulnerability for depression can be conceptualised as a combination of the existence of latent depressogenic self-schemas and incapacity to disengage from depressogenic cognitions. Therefore, the most recent research of our lab focused on these separate aspects of information processing. Based on measures of implicit cognition, remarkable results of positive self-esteem in depressed individuals which might be considered to be surprising from the perspective of cognitive theories of depression could be interpreted within a larger framework not only focussing on schema-activation but also on early versus elaborate processing and attentional bias. This endorses new questions that can be operationalised into new research projects in the future.

Attentional control in depression: A translational affective neuroscience approach

“…In line with Borkovec's (1994) suggestion that worry can be seen as a cognitive avoidance strategy, and given the overlap between worry and rumination, avoidance might be the mechanism underlying rumination in depression (De Raedt, 2006). Detailed representations or memories (e.g., traumatic past events) can be avoided by deliberately ruminating about one's depressed state in abstract terms (e.g., How should I go on with my life?).…”

Suicide-relevant information processing in unipolar and bipolar depression: An eye-tracking study.

“…Hospitalized SAs were more sensitive in gazing toward suicide images in the SA group, which is a line with studies about the relationship between suicidality and the source of patients (Pfeffer et al, 1986; Table S3-E and Figure S3-B1, B2 in the online supplemental materials). Group differences were not significant for disengagement latency for suicide images, which was not expected based on previous depression and anxiety research (De Raedt, 2013;Ellenbogen & Schwartzman, 2009;Sanchez et al, 2013). One reason is that we were using the average latency of the whole trial instead of the latency of initially disengaging away from suicide-AOI, to reflect the ability of elaborative attention control.…”

Subliminal Evaluative Conditioning Changed Implicit and Explicit Depressive Cognition

“…Implicit association, often referred as implicit attitude, has been formed for a long time since childhood based on own experiences [31]. De Raedt [32] indicated that the implicit association had similarity to depressive schema in the context of cognitive behavior theory for depression. These characteristics of implicit association would make maintaining of experimental change to be difficult.…”